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And if that pledge sufficeth not,

What more you’d have I fain would wot.

Would you assign me place below

My women friends around, who know

Their husbands’ secrets? Other men

Speak freely to their spouses when

In bed o’ nights with them they lie,

Telling them all their privity

As openly, to say the least,

As though they shrived them with their priest.

All this I know for gospel truth

Since I from their own mouths, forsooth,

Have learned things many a time when fain

Were they, in confidential strain,

To tell when all alone we’ve been

The secrets they have heard and seen.

But you would do me grievous wrong

Should you suppose that I belong

To women of such sort, for I

Ne’er blab or speak unseasonably.

So am I of my body too,

Fore God and man, fair-lived and true.

You never heard that any one

With me adultery had done,

Or if some one with ill intent

Said so—a lie did he invent.

Have you not often proved me well?

And can you aught against me tell?

Remember you, fair sir, I pray,

The oath that on our wedding-day

You pledged to me? The offering

You then made of a wedding-ring